Crowley's reasons
by Daria234
Summary: Crowley thinks back to when he was human, and why his memories show his reasons for helping Dean and Sam.  Hint:. It's not because Crowley's a good person. Crowley in the European Renaissance, with warnings for semi-accurate history.


Crowley has been in hiding since the day he helped the Winchesters stop the end of the world. Half of evil is after him, but so far, everyone who has shown up to kill him has ended up dead.

And every time, before they burst or break or are engulfed, they ask why.

Why Crowley would do it.

He never answers. There's no way to explain that he wants to save the world because he remembers what it was like to be human.

Crowley was an merchant. From England originally, he liked going where the action was, and at the time that meant Venice, a city at its peak of power. Later, they would call this time the Renaissance, or Europe's first true glimpse of modernity.

In Crowley's mind, Venice was a bounty of all the things that made existence tolerable. Silks and spices, gold and silver, painting and sculpture and architecture. Witty, expensive courtesans and cheap whorehouses too, vellum books of saucy poetry, delicious pies filled with the meat of rare birds. And the most exquisite wines. Not like these wines today, aiming for good reviews for their clean finish; a glass of wine should have dregs, a reminder that all sweetness comes from dirt.

But Venice was more than finery and culture. It was a city of cutthroats and hangings and duels and greed, which, if anything, were even more fun than the art and the food. New kinds of rulers, too, and new techniques for using people up and throwing them away. Political scandals, trade, wars, empire. A veritable funhouse of new kinds of power, but still revolving around all the old things: sex, gold, and blood. It was in Venice that Crowley made his true fortune, whispering questions to the worn out whores as they slept, finding out the secrets of the noblility. Leveraging these weaknesses then to learn the weaknesses of yet more powerful people, working his way through the gentle classes with a combination of charm and ruthlessness that made him the most feared man in the city.

Crowley was better than anyone at using secrets to annihilate.

But his favorite thing, when he was human, was betrayal. It was intoxicating to watch, as some powerful patron realized Crowley had betrayed him, that the English merchant they all found so delightful and trustworthy was nonchalantly informing them of their destruction. A sudden paleness, then, as if Crowley had drained the blood from their face with his own hands. And then disbelief: because as savvy and cruel as this new breed of leader could be, they still - despite all the despair they had seen and icaused/i - wanted to believe that the world was there to give them what they wanted. They wanted to believe that their power was secure, that their friends were true, and that their lives would end happily. Against all logic, they still believed these things - until Crowley came and announced that he had gutted their treasuries, their alliances, their secrets, their hopes.

And truly these were Crowley's favorite playthings: shame, secrets, fear, and hope. Strings to pull on to make the people dance.

It was no wonder he was offered a similar position when he was done being human.

And Crowley thrived among the demons. Short-tempered, brilliant, crafty, and violent, he was considered one of the best despite being younger than most of the demons he commanded. But what they didn't tell Crowley, what he was dismayed and then enraged to learn, is that demons are - above all other things - expected to be perfectly loyal.

Yes, it was loyalty to evil. But still. To be loyal for all eternity...

Not to everyone, of course. Demons may engage in infighting and backstabbing among one another. But they must always be loyal to their own side, and especially to their ... role model.

Loyalty.

In other words, making the same choice every time. Evil over good. Destruction over preservation. Hell over earth.

A demon, unlike an angel, does not ever betray his side.

To Crowley, this sounded like rubbish. A demon, a force of evil, should never be a good little soldier. A demon should never talk about the cause or the victory or the war like it means more than the pleasure of doing something wrong and horrid and delicious. It was agitating, truly, to know that the vast majority of demons didn't have the faintest idea what being evil was really all about.

But there was little to be done. After all, if there was one thing Crowley liked better than betrayal, it was survival.

But then the battles started. The gates all got a little looser, and it seemed like the end was approaching.

But then the rumors, surprising if intriguing: it seemed that humans would determine the end.

Weak little humans with their shame and their fear and their hope.

And this was an opportunity.

To play, yes. But also to betray. To once again feel that electricity soar through him, that high of knowing he has just betrayed the greatest power in the realm, and knowing he would be the one to walk away from it intact.

Even as a human, he was more a true demon than most of these idiots who called themselves evil. And Crowley was going to reclaim evil for those who knew what it was. Those who knew that making the earth your personal playground only worked if most of the other evil things stay put.

Helping those pathetic little humans prevail was Crowley's greatest betrayal. It was putting the world - and himself - before the armies of evil. And although it cost him his place in the hierarchy, and put him on the run from just about everyone, he was immensely proud of it. He found some twisted sense of redemption in the fact that even after centuries of service and obedience, the real Crowley was still there.

* * *

Note: written for spn_las on lj


End file.
